More Bones (11 page)

Oddly enough, there was no furniture in sight. The old man scurried about, first bringing in a low bench, then a low table, and then a bowl of rice with a few scraps of meat.

The old man apologized for serving such a humble meal, but the trader barely listened, because he saw the man's lovely daughter enter the room with a pot of tea.

She didn't behave like most maidens, who lowered their eyes and glanced sideways at strangers. Her dark eyes were fixed directly on the trader. He was surprised but intrigued. What sort of maiden was she? She was quick to refill his cup and to bring more rice. By the time he had finished his meal, he had decided to ask her father's permission to marry her. “May I hope that you will unite our two families?”

“With pleasure,” said the old man. “If you will share your house, we will come to live with you.”

The next day, the trader returned home to make the necessary arrangements. When all was ready, he rode back to the maiden's town, but before he reached her home, he found her walking down the road. She was dressed in mourning clothes, carrying a bundle, and weeping.

“My father was killed when the back wall of the house fell on him,” she said. “I must bury him today. Please wait for me here.”

“Can't I help you?” he asked, reaching for her bundle.

“Not if you love me,” she said. As she twisted away, he felt something brush against his wrist that felt like cats' whiskers. The maiden quickly pulled the wrapping tight around the bundle, sobbing harder than ever. When she disappeared into a clump of trees, she was still cradling the bundle in her arms.

What was happening? The trader leaned against a tree, confused and impatient, but he waited until she returned—with no bundle in hand.

“Now we must sell our grain,” she said, leading him back to her house. When they had found enough buyers to empty the granary, she gathered up her things, and the trader helped her onto his mule.

The maiden did not complain about the long and tiring ride, but she did make a strange request. “Never speak to my old neighbors about me or my father. They are a bad lot,” she said. No matter how many times the trader asked her why, she would not say.

When they reached the trader's home, they were warmly welcomed by his parents and his brother. Soon a lucky day was chosen for the marriage, and the trader and his bride began a happy life together. She spent much of her time spinning, earning money for her new family. She also brought them good fortune. Their granary seemed to remain full no matter how much they ate.

One day the trader's brother happened to travel to the very town where his sister-in-law once lived. He didn't know that he should not mention her to her old neighbors. So he told them how his brother had been welcomed into the house next door to theirs.

“You must be mistaken,” said the neighbor. “No one has lived in that house for years. Something frightened the owners away. Then the back wall fell in. When I heard the noise, I went over. Do you know what I saw buried under the rubble? Something big and furry.” His voice dropped so low that his words were muffled. “It wasn't moving.” He leaned closer. “But when I looked minutes later, it had
disappeared.
I'll never go near that house again.”

The trader's brother was amazed. When he returned home, he took his brother aside and told him what the neighbor had said.

“No one lived there?” cried the trader. “How can you believe such rumors? Now I know why she said the neighbors were a bad lot.” But as much as he loved his wife, he began to watch her closely for strange signs.

He noticed how she sniffed the food she was cooking. “Only to make sure I have flavored it well,” she said. He also noticed that her teeth were growing longer. One night he was awakened by a gnawing sound. He arose and startled his wife, who dropped a piece of wood on the floor. “I have a bad toothache,” she said. “This numbs the pain.” But she seemed upset that he had seen her gnawing wood.

What worried him most was the way she sometimes disappeared at night. He often heard scurrying around the granary. Was she scavenging grain from surrounding farms?

One night he went out to investigate and saw a large rat with an unusually long tail. It was carrying a small sack of grain in its teeth. At first it cowered, looking straight at
him with dark, beady eyes. But when the trader tried to kill it with a big stick, the rat defended itself. It jumped onto the trader's back and bit his neck. He dropped his stick and swatted the rat with his hands—giving it the opportunity it needed to flee. But it limped as it raced away.

The next morning, the trader's neck was swollen and sore. His wife moistened towels with cool water and held them against the wound to reduce the swelling.

The trader was torn between love and fear. Was he imagining things, or was his wife limping? And what was that bruise, mostly hidden by the sleeve of her robe? He was desperate to know what was happening, so he tried something drastic. He brought a ferocious cat into the household. His wife didn't say anything, but there was fear in her eyes when she watched it bite off the head of a mouse.

The next morning, his wife's face and hands were bandaged, and the cat's ear was bitten. “That cat attacked me,” she cried. “Please take it away!”

Now her husband was more suspicious than ever, but he was sorry to see his wife suffering, so he put the cat outdoors.

That night, the trader heard wild caterwauling. It sounded like alley cats fighting over tidbits of food. When he saw that his wife was not in bed, he rushed outside. An army of cats raced away, led by the ferocious mouser. The trader looked down at his feet, horrified. There on the doorstep was an unusually long rat's tail and scraps of rat fur.

Where was his wife? She was nowhere to be found.

Youth without Age

TURKEY

 
 
Even before the prince entered the world, he drove his parents wild. “I never knew that babies could scream before they were born,” groaned the king. “Nor I,” sobbed the queen. At least the king could leave the room. But the poor queen had no relief, day or night, from the little one screaming inside her.

The greatest magicians in the land were summoned. They tried their most powerful spells. They sang and they chanted before the pregnant queen. But nothing silenced the screaming.

The king tried promises. “My darling child,” he said, “I will give you all the kingdoms east of the sun and west of the moon.” Still the baby screamed. “If you are a boy, I will find you a bride as lovely as the Fairy Queen. If you are a girl, you will be wed to the finest prince in the land.” The baby screamed even louder.

The king grew desperate. “I will give you
Youth without Age
and
Life without Death
,” he declared. Only then did the screaming stop—and shortly thereafter a baby boy entered the world. During his son's childhood, the king didn't think twice about the extravagant promise he had made.

The prince was a remarkably calm child. He no longer screamed or even raised his voice. His smiles brightened the lives of everyone in the castle. But on his sixteenth birthday, his mood changed. He stood before his father, looking unusually determined. “It's time,” he said, “for you to give me what you promised before I was born.”

The king turned pale. “How can I give you something the world has never known? I only wished to quiet you.”

“Then I must seek it for myself,” said the prince. The king and the queen were brokenhearted. How could they let their beloved son set forth on such an unlikely quest? Where could he possibly find Life without Death? They warned him of the dangers he would face. They told him that if he stayed, he soon would rule the kingdom himself. They begged and they pleaded, but he would not listen.

Finally the king said, “If you must go, I want you to take my strongest horse.” The prince raced down to his father's stables. How could he choose among such handsome chargers? His father had the finest in all the land. But something odd happened when the prince touched them. They trembled. It was almost as if the horses knew the dangers of the prince's quest.

Only one horse stood steady. That was the one the prince chose—a worthy companion for his long journey. He told his servants to saddle it while he said good-bye to the king and the queen.

“You must take my warriors with you,” said the king. But the prince wanted to find his destiny by himself, so he soon ordered them to return home. He did not know what dangers lay ahead, but he trusted himself and his horse.

He rode for days and weeks and months, until he came to a land so far away that nothing seemed familiar. When he stopped by a hut to see if he could spend the night, a five-eyed witch came to the door. She spit fire and flame and threatened to burn the prince to a cinder.

“Cook my dinner, instead,” he demanded.

The witch was startled. Why didn't he flee? She had never met such a brave man before. “Wait,” she said. “If you gather some wood, I will light a fire.”

But the moment he rode off to look for wood, the witch turned herself into a beautiful maiden. She turned her hut into a palace and moved it farther into the forest. She knew the prince would travel that way. “Welcome,” she said, when he rode up to the castle door. He was holding an armload of wood and looking lost. “Come right in.”

Before the prince knew it, he found himself enchanted
by the maiden and her spells. The prince spent a happy week with her. He fed apples to the unicorns that she summoned to the lawn each morning. He shared the splendid meals that magically appeared on her table. And when he climbed to the castle roof with her, he saw more falling stars in a single night than he had seen in his entire lifetime. But a witch is a witch at heart, and she soon tired of being pleasant.

“Off you go,” she said, still looking like a maiden but beginning to spit a little fire.

The prince raced away on his horse, his mind confused by the witch's spells. He didn't understand that he must remain with the witch if he hoped to fulfill his quest
.
All he knew was that he had an unbearable yearning to see his parents. He
must
return home.

But as he rode back, he discovered that forests had become fields, and villages had turned to cities. When the prince asked how this could have happened in the short week he was gone, people scurried away. They looked back over their shoulders, frightened by his wild eyes and his old-fashioned clothing.

This made the prince so angry that he didn't notice that his hair had turned white, as well as his beard. As he rode along, his legs began to tremble and his beard grew all the way down to his waist. His horse began to falter. He didn't realize that the seven days he had spent with the witch really were seven hundred years.

When he reached his parents' palace, all that he saw was ruin and weeds. The prince searched every corner of every room. He looked through every stall in the stable. But he found that nothing from his childhood remained. Finally he pushed aside rubble and went down to the palace cellar. By now his beard was flapping against his knees and he could barely totter along. All he found there was a battered strongbox.

The prince struggled to lift the lid. Inside he saw something that looked like a shriveled leaf. But to his horror, it rose up and spoke. “Had you left me here much longer, I would have perished,” said his Death.

Its withered hand reached out and touched the prince. Instantly, he crumbled into dust. His quest for Youth without Age and Life without Death had failed.

The Haunted Violin

GERMANY

 
 
Even the magician couldn't stop the passage of time. When his long life was about to end, he asked a carpenter to make his coffin. “Use wood from this tree,” he said, pointing to one that shaded his doorstep. “It sprang from the ground the day I was born. Be sure to use it for my coffin . . . and for nothing else.”